City Politics / Life

Less than a week away from the Tuesday primary election, many of the political chips have already fallen for David Campos and David Chiu, colleagues on the Board of Supervisors running against each other for the state Assembly, and the race for first place is heated though voter turnout is expected to be low. Both candidates are expected to face each other again in a decisive November election due to California’s new top-two primary system,…

COMPTON — Three days after being elected the first Latino council member in Compton’s history, 26-year-old Isaac Galvan called a unity meeting at Raspados Los Portales, a tiny restaurant in his district. The twenty-some Latinos who showed, a commingling of Galvan’s supporters and doubters, listened on as the District 2 councilman-elect in a dress shirt and shoes said: “I called you to be here because I’m the new councilman and I need your guys’ help….

COMPTON — The dignitaries poured in, the mariachi band played and a few hundred community members surrounded the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial outside City Hall Tuesday afternoon to witness the oath of office ceremony swearing in six elected city officials – two of them new, young faces. “Hola. Buenos dias,” said 26-year-old Isaac Galvan, the first Latino City Council member in Compton’s history and first to be sworn in. “I’m grateful that the voters…

LOS ANGELES — In this city where a lack of medical marijuana regulation made it the “Wild West” compared to the Bay Area, a historic election with three competing ballot measures has finally brought some order. The winning measure, Proposition D — the most conservative of the three — gained 62.6 percent support from voters as a compromise between the City Council and a key labor union. The measure limits medical marijuana activities to about 130 pot shops…

TILDEN — Every weekday morning, the rumble of buses dropping off students at McMullen County’s only public school gets drowned out by the heavy trucks whizzing by on Texas 16. Tilden is a small town, and with 235 students in pre-K through 12th grades, the school is small, too — even after enrollment jumped 42 percent in a year and a half. Outside, students can see the reason: drilling rigs in the distance. At recess,…

Around midnight, a San Antonio Park Police officer walked by some Occupy San Antonio regulars at HemisFair Park, and one of the protesters asked him, “How’s it been?” “You’ve got two Coca-Colas,” the protester, Shamus McWright, added casually. “Anyone want one?” the officer said. “Whoever can get it first …” A few occupiers got up and teasingly ran for the soda, but let McWright, 24, limping a bit from an all-day march, claim it. It…

For two decades, Raymond Young has set up his poultry stall to sell live chickens at United Nations Plaza every Wednesday and Sunday before the crack of dawn. His steady stream of customers are mostly Chinese. But in April, another group of early risers started showing up not to buy but to block sales. “Live animals don’t belong in bags!” read a banner that animal rights activists, most of them vegan, held beside dozens of Chinese waiting…

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I'm a journalist based in Southern California, reporting in English, Spanish and Cantonese for The Orange County Register. My beats are the city of Santa Ana, which is the county seat, and transportation. Occasionally I write about sports. Half of my professional career has been spent in Spanish-language media. I was the first Asian reporter for La Opinión, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the U.S., and helped launch, write and produce for Time Warner Cable Deportes, the country's first regional sports network in Spanish.
My award-winning work includes series on an undocumented student whose deportation was blocked by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Latinos' struggle for political power in Compton and an evicted family who became the face of San Francisco's housing crisis. I've completed fellowships with The New York Times and Hearst Newspapers and my byline has appeared as far away as Ecuador.
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